


there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely

by houselannister



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 17:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2515334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houselannister/pseuds/houselannister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They were all waiting for the day when Death inevitably caught up with them, and they would be lucky if it happened in the least painful possible way. Truly, they were all dead already, preemptively. He sure as fuck felt dead."</p>
<p>Shamelessly inspired by The Walking Dead. Zombie apocalypse AU. For Suzy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely

_Dear Tyrion,_

_I hope you'll return and find this letter when everything is over. Last night they bit Joffrey. I tried to hold him back but he slipped through my fingers; he had Robert's shotgun, he wanted to avenge him. We could not bury him, there was little left. Cersei is catatonic, Tommen won't stop crying. We don't know where Myrcella is._

_We're leaving. Us, the Tyrells and a few others. It's not safe, there are too many of them: the barricades around the perimeter of the house won't hold much longer. We're gonna head west, they say Los Angeles is working on a cure. I don't know if I believe it. Father insists._

_I hope to see you soon, little brother. I hope you're still alive. Fuck, I hope I am still alive by the time you read this. And should you find me in the streets, wandering aimlessly like those creatures, don't hesitate and put a bullet through my skull._

_Good luck, Tyrion. I love you._

_Jaime_

__  
  
  


*

 

Tommen slept peacefully in his mother's arms and Jaime knew he was too young for all that. Eight years old would surely count as too young to watch your brother torn to shreds by the same thing that was once his father. His thoughts went to Myrcella, briefly: a part of him knew not to expect much but he kept telling Cersei they would find her, he told her every day and she believed it because she needed to.

 

They had been on the move for fourteen months; they’d managed settling down in an abandoned town in the midwest at some point, but soon enough they were overrun and forced to leave once more. That had been the day they lost Tywin, and Jaime remembered pulling Cersei into his chest to keep her from seeing the blood, and the guts spilled on the ground. But Tywin’s voice and loud agony had echoed into the dark night long after they’d left the place, had echoed inside their heads.

 

Of the thirteen people who left San Francisco fourteen months ago, only ten remained: Margaery and Loras Tyrell who liked to huddle together close to the fire at night, Dr. Qyburn with his unreliable medical knowledge, Taena Merryweather and her frightened husband whose name Jaime never seemed to recall, their old Uncle Kevan and his poor attempts at mimicking their father’s leadership, their cousin Lancel and his Bible (a tiny book he’d found during one of their lootings, which he’d taken to heart), Cersei, Tommen and himself.

 

Sansa Stark and Petyr Baelish had disappeared into the night some five months earlier; it was June, and Jaime remembered the smell of flowers mixed with the rotting corpses. Margaery’s grandmother, Olenna, was bit not long after that, and the little rose insisted she should be the one to thrust a knife through the woman’s forehead because that was “how she would have wanted it”.

 

(That night Cersei told him they were better off without her, and that the woman was “old enough to be dead anyway”. Unlike Joffrey. Most of Cersei’s phrases the past fourteen months seemed to find natural conclusion with an unspoken _unlike Joffrey_. Tommen cried a lot, _unlike Joffrey_. Everyone seemed so pathetically scared, _unlike Joffrey_. Jaime didn’t love her enough, _unlike Joffrey_.)

 

“That looks empty.”

 

Cersei’s finger was pointing ahead, towards a small house that might have been home to no more than three people - back when everybody was still alive. There was ten of them now, it was going to be crowded, but it was better than sleeping in the vehicles they had stolen. Jaime held a hand up outside the car window and signalled a turn left; a small van and a motorbike followed them. Jaime had insisted he should call dibs on the motorbike for Cersei and himself, but then his sister had asked him how he planned on carrying Tommen. His sister’s drawled sarcasm had shut him up, so the motorbike had gone to Loras Tyrell and his little brown-haired sister.

 

A small group of those things had made a brief appearance, attracted by their engines. Jaime and Loras had taken care of them swiftly, without a glitch. Loras had done four in, Jaime only two: it didn’t escape Cersei, who walked past him with a mocking glare, carrying Tommen’s sleeping form. Funny how quickly it had become a competition between Jaime and Loras, or as Jaime liked to call the boy, _his younger self_.

 

Every place was like a piece of clothing that they kept trying on, hoping for the perfect fit, but they all inevitably tore at the seams whenever they turned out to be impracticable, with walls too thin or glass windows too frail. The division of work didn’t suit Cersei in the least: the women had to scout or food, settle and set up the sleeping nests, while the men went out and took care of securing the perimeter. The first days his sister always insisted she should go out with them, that she was just as good as the lot of them if not way more capable. Jaime had let her go with now and then, thinking he should be different from Tywin: his sister had a determination to her, who was he to rein it in? But that had stopped the day she had been surprised by a creature, and almost died for it; Jaime shivered at the memory of Cersei’s high-pitched screams, and the terror that had seized him as he ran thinking it might be too late.

 

She still asked to go with him whenever she was in a foul mood, but he didn’t bother answering anymore. He would not risk her safety for her stubborn willfulness.

 

*

 

October had played tricks on them, switching from very hot to very cold without a warning. They had stopped for winter clothes, which they had found in an abandoned place in the outskirts of Dallas. The clothes were too big (in Cersei’s and Margaery’s cases) or too small (Kevan’s) and some others fit them just right. Whenever Jaime held the high collar of his dark coat around his neck he wondered if its previous owner had been a dashing gentleman or a broke businessman who had gambled his daughter’s college money.

 

Which category would Jaime fall in? Whose skin would he wear better? Perhaps a bit of both.

 

The house was small but they managed settling in, using sheets and covers that no one would miss. They all agreed to let Tommen sleep on the mattress in the one master bedroom in the far end of the only corridor, let him go unbothered for the night. Shield him, if they could, from hearing and seeing more than a child should. As for the rest of them, they had all agreed to make turns sleeping to keep watch: Loras and Qyburn had been the first ones.

 

In the back was a small yard, a white picket fence and grass uncut that reached way past their knees. And trees, unruly trees that obstructed the house from view. That was where he had her, pinned against the harsh bark, his arms enveloping her and the tree alike to balance his thrusting. Cersei ground her teeth and hissed, having mastered the skill of keeping quiet by now; for his own part Jaime had never been the loud kind, even less so ever since they’d started hanging out in a group.

 

There had been a time when he’d told her they should escape, be just the two of them and Tommen, but Cersei had been brusque, brutally honest.

 

_(“And what if you die then, who will protect Tommen?”)_

 

“Jaime!” she bellowed then, and Jaime grinned at his prowess, at how his sister could still barely contain herself. He thrust a little harder, murmured in her ear, asked her to say his name again. She did and it took him a few seconds to register the fear in her voice. Her eyes were big and she was pushing him off her saying words, unintelligible for a long while until he saw her reach for the rifle he’d abandoned by the tree. Disheveled and still in the haze of arousal he had failed to see the signs or hear the noises. He pulled up his pants and turned around in time to see Cersei point the rifle at one of three walkers; he grabbed the end of the rifle and snatched it from her hands, flipping it over and hitting the creature’s forehead with the stock. It cracked like an eggshell, making a gurgling noise he was used to by now as the rotten blood flowed.

 

“Don’t fucking shoot unless you have to,” he hissed angrily. “It’ll only attract more, I fucking told you.”

 

The other two advanced slowly towards them, arms limp at their sides and jaws wide open. _I’m not your dinner_. Jaime clutched the barrel tightly in a fist and used the rifle as a club, smashing yet another skull. There was blood on his shirt, dark and stinky, and the ground was covered in gore where the bodies dropped dead at last. The last walker approached just in time for Jaime to hit him square in the chest and make him fall backwards onto the ground, where he squashed the head with his heel after a feeble struggle.

 

Jaime rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand to hide some of the sweat, but he was grinning when he turned around.

 

“Where were we?”

 

Cersei’s lips had just begun to curve upwards when he saw the hands reach for her shoulders, hands as white as chalk with black veins, bony fingers and yellow claws. The temperature seemed to drop as he watched Cersei get pulled back into a vicious grip by an undead creature: he didn’t think, there was no time for that. He launched himself onto the both of them, and they all landed on the ground with a thud, a knot of limbs and shouting that seemed to go on until Cersei was rid of the monster and crawling away from the battling two.

 

Jaime heard the creature’s wailing, and a sudden searing pain that he could not locate. He was sweating profusely now, trying to get a hold of a weak spot or any part of the walker that would allow him to pin him to the ground. Jaime straddled him at last, hands covered in blood from before smearing the pale face that tried to reach for his flesh. With one hand around the creature’s throat Jaime pulled an arm back and clenched a fist only to let it come back down with a force that cracked the entire facial structure, all the way into the brain. The body stilled and Jaime rolled off and onto the ground; Cersei knelt by the tree watching on, hands clinging to the rifle like she’d been about to shoot but was ultimately too scared to.

 

“Jaime.”

 

He loser his eyes. “Can you wait for just a second before you start complaining about whatever you’re going to complain about?”

 

“Jaime. Your hand.”

 

Never for a moment had Jaime halted to realize the blood on his hands was too bright and fresh, and that it might, in fact, be his own.

 

*

 

They did not stay in that place for more than one night. It was too small, too deep into the woods, which meant too many walkers might find a way through the traps unnoticed. Margaery made sure to gather all the food they found in the cabinets before they left, while Loras and Lancel filled up the car trunks with water and medicine that had not yet reached their expiration date. Kevan took care of the fuel, getting all he could from the two cars parked in front of the entrance and some back-up from the garage.

 

Sitting on the van, Jaime watched them wordlessly: even the easiest movements were undefeatable tasks without his right hand.

 

The night before would forever be burned into Jaime’s memory, a nightmare for all the nights to come for the rest of his life. It was not the pain that bothered him, it was the absence of something that had been born with him and that had always been part of him. Not unlike Cersei herself, his right hand had defined him from a very young age, and now that it was gone he was not sure what to rely on. Could he shoot a gun with his left hand, or would it tremble unsteady forever? Could he fight a walker, or kill it when it came down to it? Could he keep himself safe, and Cersei?

 

If he could not do any of those things, then who was he?

 

By all means he should be grateful, that what Margaery Tyrell kept saying every time she caught a glimpse of him broody and dark in the face. “If the Doc had not cut off your hand you would be dead… actually, you would be worse than dead.” That was what she had said, and Jaime had told her perhaps she ought to cut off her own hand too and see how she liked that, or that he could do it for her if she thought him so lucky. All of his arguments were void: he was alive, and he might not have been. He could still hold cersei if he wanted, practice with his left hand until he was as good as he was with his right one. Time, perhaps. He needed time.

 

The more he told himself that the angrier he got, the more that sounded like a lie, the same sort they’d told Tommen to justify why gramps and Joff were gone. Tommen knew. Jaime knew he knew. The lies were just a way for Cersei to feel better about herself, to delude herself into thinking perhaps her son would not bear the scars of this forever.

 

As if he could survive this, as if there would ever be an after.

 

Now that his hand was gone Jaime knew there would be no saving, no Earth rebuilt, no cure or shelter. They were all waiting for the day when Death inevitably caught up with them, and they would be lucky if it happened in the least painful possible way. Truly, they were all dead already, preemptively. He sure as fuck felt dead.

 

Even Cersei looked at him differently. The night before, she’d paled when she’d seen the bite and he was sure she would faint; then had come the rushed movements around him, Qyburn’s voice, Loras Tyrell and uncle Kevan’s restraints on Jaime’s legs and arms to keep him still. The last thing he remembered before the blade was Cersei’s loud wailing, her desperate pleas to save him but also don’t cut, don’t cut, please don’t cut. But cut they had, and when he’d come to he’d caught her staring at the bandage with empty eyes, like she’d lost something too, like the hand they’d dared to amputate was as much hers as it was his.

 

It was November.

 

*

 

Jaime did not remember noticing it, but in hindsight if he had to pinpoint the exact point in which Cersei’s attitude had begun to change so drastically it would be way before his accident. A son’s death was a mother’s worst nightmare surely, and Joffrey’s death had been cruel: something had snapped in his sister then, something terrifying that had changed her physiognomy deeply. There was no joyous mischief in her green eyes, no childlike wonder when he brought her along to show her how to set a particularly difficult trap under his surveillance. She had grown more vicious, ruthless for the sake of ruthlessness alone: no one could give her son back, but she seemed sure as hell bent on making every last person pay for his absence.

 

Even from a distance she seemed to blame their brother for it, accusing him of leaving Robert’s shotgun out in the open before he left. “I hope your son shoots himself in the foot with it,” Tyrion had said after a particularly heated fight back in the old house. Irrational as it was, Cersei had to place the blame somewhere, anywhere but on Joffrey. Tyrion had always been her favourite scapegoat.

 

Margaery Tyrell didn’t have it any better. The fourteen year old had taken Tommen to heart, and Tommen liked to spend time with the girl just as well, which infuriated Cersei for reasons he found hard to comprehend. Sometimes he swore his sister looked at the Tyrell girl like she was an unspoken threat to her own role in the group. Cersei was an alpha female, always had been, and that status could not be compromised.

 

She’d had the same look in her eyes when Sansa Stark was still around.

 

“You’re holding it wrong.”

 

Jaime had thought this might be good for the both of them. Him, teaching her how to shoot a gun. Not without bitterness on his part - there should be no need for this, he should be the one shielding her from everything. Alas, life was what it was and it turned out he was not half as good with his left hand as he’d hoped to be. Actually that would be an understatement: he could barely aim, and he’d missed all the targets he’d placed for himself. If a walker were to sneak in on them now he wasn’t sure he would be quite as able to save them both.

 

Scratch that: he knew he would not.

 

It made him feel useless, and lost.

 

“Well how about you hold it then?” she snapped, throwing the firearm to the ground, at his feet. “Oh right, you can’t.” Everyone had noticed, to his biggest resentment. Even Loras, who eyed him carefully every time they were attacked and Jaime would rather use his bare hands and risk his life than use a gun. Jaime had perfected his excuse, saying over and over again that the noise would only attract more of those creatures, but it was just that: an excuse. Everyone around him knew the truth and it made him shy away from company at all times.

 

Even Cersei’s.

 

Of course Cersei’s reproach was not unexpected. In fact one might go as far as to say she had not made a secret of what she thought of his hand at all. It was humiliating most of the times, but now and then it would be just infuriating and he’d stomp away haunted by the darkest of thoughts. Would he save her, now? Even if he could, would he? The woman she had become? The selfish, cruel woman who had stopped loving him?

 

He didn’t answer.

 

“What, the walkers got your tongue as well as your hand?”

 

It was unfair of him, he knew, to judge her for her anger. It all originated from that dark place inside her that had been tickled by Joffrey’s death and that had never had a chance to heal. She was in pain, every day, but so was he. He refused to acknowledge her out of spite because why should her losses be more important than his? She asked of him to put aside his woe and tend to hers, but he was just as stubborn as her, and self-centric. And even though his duty was to protect her, hers was to love him and she was doing a fucking awful job at that.

 

However his silence seemed to get her more worked up, and soon enough she was seething at his passivity, glaring like she expected him to breath fire or leap or hit her.

 

(His palms itched, sometimes. When he was desperate for her attention and she wouldn’t give it to him he thought he should hate her, knock her teeth out. A toothless grin would be less alluring. But then he’d see her come out of the tent where they used to sleep together, holding Tommen’s hand and smiling in the sun and memories of her and them would quench the flames of his rage.)

 

She was angry, mad and angry, insane when she bent to pick up the same gun and throw it at him once more; he tried to catch it, fumbled with it and ultimately dropped it because his left hand was just no good in any circumstance. Cersei laughed bitterly but when he looked up she wasn’t even smiling, she wasn’t even mocking him: she looked at him like he’d hurt her, like his crippled status was a wound to her instead of him, like he had dared do this to her.

 

_I didn’t ask for it._

 

“How can I trust you? How can I hope you’ll protect Tommen? And me!” If none of what had come so far had been unexpected, what followed was: she was crying, looking away because he should not see her cry now. (He used to be the only one she’d let in when she was upset. Even that was gone now.) “You couldn’t even save Joffrey.”

 

_Ah, there it is._ Through the tears she’d let out the biggest blame of all, the blame that had weighed down on his shoulders ever since Joffrey had run out of the house slipping through his fingers, the day he had not managed keeping him in the house. Jaime wondered if he should tell her the most horrible truth and see if she cared, that he did not even remember the boy’s face nor miss him in the least, that by all means he had thought the child a burden since the day he’d come into the world and that a part of him had been relieved he was gone at last.

 

But he feared that might be too much for his sister, who was already far too unstable in her own mind. He knew what he should do: he should try to get to her, grab her wrist and pull her into him as if that could give the comfort she needed. But that would mean letting her win, giving satisfaction to her needs over his, and he had done enough of that. He didn’t move.

 

Perhaps he should have. That might have soothed some of her unrest.

 

“What is the point of you, Jaime?”

 

Indeed.

 

It was childish, and mostly selfish, but he liked to call it self-preservation: that night he left.

 

He could not hope to protect her anyway.

 

*

 

They never tell you how difficult life on your own is. Especially not in the middle of a pandemic that kills-but-not-kills half the population leaving deadly monsters in its wake. He was Jaime Lannister and he managed, even without his right hand, even without his sister, even without his father or the money and prestige that had been his passepartout throughout his whole life. Nothing mattered but survival and Jaime found a way. Along the road he’d decided he’d find Sansa Stark if he could, because she was a little girl and no little girl should be alone in the world, not with a man like Petyr Baelish.

 

What he didn’t say out loud was that Sansa reminded him of Cersei. Maybe she could not save his sister (not even from herself) but he could certainly do his best to keep Sansa Stark from reaching an ugly end, couldn’t he? It was a reason as good as any to keep going.

 

Brienne of Tarth saved him from certain death. He was feverish, weak and dehydrated and laying in a pool of his own piss when the walkers found the cave he’d sought shelter in. Jaime remembered seeing them crawl toward him, and that was when he’d looked up and hoped with all his might that there not be a God above because he would certainly have to respond to more sins than he cared for. But instead of dying he’d lived, and a giant of a woman had slashed her way through the small herd. Dead body after dead body she’d dragged them all outside the cave and later Jaime had smelled the burning corpses. When she’d returned inside and looked at him almost in disgust he’d asked her who she was, and she had replied with her name, Brienne, and told him she knew who he was.

 

Perhaps it was the fever but he laughed hard enough that his ribs hurt. Of course she knew him: you can’t hope to kill a tycoon like Aerys Targaryen and go unnoticed. No one asked him, he just got away with it because he was Tywin Lannister’s son, and Tywin Lannister’s son could not go to jail: they said it was self-defense, made up some excuse and let him free. The truth was not far from it, it was necessary. Aerys was mad. Aerys would kill the people. Aerys might kill Cersei.

 

He was feverish and Brienne should have let him to rot by all means but she didn’t, because she was a better woman than he was a man and because she was on a mission. Coincidentally their missions were the same, although they had different reasons: Brienne wanted to find Sansa because she had promised as much to her mother, Catelyn Stark. Jaime wanted to find Sansa because… because he wanted to find something else. A sense, possibly. Some reason that would show him he was not useless. Proof that he was not pointless. Jaime happened to be the last man who had seen Sansa Stark alive, and that meant Brienne needed him.

 

It was hard to pinpoint exactly where Sansa might be; all Jaime remembered was that it had been early Summer when she and Littlefinger left the group into the night, and that was it. He didn’t even remember where it happened, just that there was a smell of flowers in the air. It wasn’t easy to just ask questions, especially when there were so few people left alive, and those who were were more likely to rob you and kill you than help you. Jaime didn’t blame them: he would have done the same, but Brienne was a different kind. Brienne was good, the kind of good he had never met in his life. Except for Sansa maybe.

 

Cersei had never been good, but there was a time when she was genuine, at least with him.

 

It made sense to him, that a woman like Brienne would scorch the world for a girl like Sansa. He didn’t know why, but it made a special kind of sense. Good calls good, after all. The same way rotten calls rotten. (He thought of himself, and his father, and Cersei, and Tyrion, and how they were all rotten to the core and it was not a surprise their mother had died: she was too good for the lot of them.)

 

They never really liked each other, but they ended up travelling together for six months.

 

They never found Sansa.

 

*

 

One year had passed since he’d last seen Cersei, and when it happened, when their path intersect once more it’s because he returned. Morbid curiosity maybe, he told himself. It was something bigger: he loved her and hated her and wanted her and it was just too much to not be with her, wherever that might mean. He felt the same magnetic pull that had drawn him out of his mother’s womb with his fingers wrapped around his sister’s foot. He had to go, he had to be there.

 

The problem was he did not know where or when he would find Cersei. All he knew was that they were going North, so that was his safest bet.

 

He and Brienne reached what was once Ottawa, and it was so fucking cold he was sure he saw even the stoic woman tremble violently under the layers of wool that covered her ugly-shaped body. She was a wonder, better with weapons than Jaime could ever hope to be with his left hand, just as good as he used to be with his right one. He admired her. Slowly but certainly he had grown to care. She was young, closer to Sansa’s age than his own: yet another girl on his path, only this one needed no protection. She was the one protecting him.

 

Yet again, she was not Cersei.

 

They were scouting for medicines when he heard the agitated voices, and Jaime thought he must be hallucinating - yet again. But then he heard them again and this time he ran. He never heard Brienne telling him to stop, that it was dangerous, or at least to wait or her. He was in the streets in the fraction of a second.

 

He saw Qyburn before he saw anyone else. He held a rifle similar to the one Jaime used to carry,Loras followed with quick steps, speaking nervously. When they saw him standing there they halted and Jaime could see the absolute dismay that crossed their face. What was funnier, finding him in the middle of nowhere or the big woman standing awkwardly tall behind him?

 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Qyburn was the first to speak, with that calm voice that Jaime remembered so well, so calm it unnerved him. Jaime knew what that implied: fancy seeing him there _after he’d run off into the night and left them short one man._

 

“You know what they say, it’s a small world.”

 

In that moment Jaime saw them as moth, flying and buzzing around, trying to avoid the big bulb of light between them - Cersei. Of course it would not last any longer, Cersei’s presence was overbearing even though she was not there. Which reminded him…

 

“Is she…”

 

“She’s alive.”

 

The immediate response had come from Loras, with a discreet loathing in his voice, like the fact that Cersei was alive was source of stress for everyone. Jaime should hit him for that but he could not blame him really. For a long time he had been the only one to understand Cersei, and now not even that, not even him.

 

“But Tommen is not.”

 

That made him feel something. When Qyburn had said that he’d looked straight into his eyes, he had spoken the words softly like he was breaking the news to someone important, someone related. Of course Jaime was related, but they were not supposed to know. _I am the boy’s uncle, just that._ Still he felt something and the sudden tension showed in his knitted brows and the fists that clenched at his sides. He felt Brienne move closer.

 

“How did that happen?”

 

When Joffrey had died he had not felt much but pain for his sister’s agony, but Tommen was different. Tommen was young and sweet and innocent, he had not yet had time to rot the way they all do, the way Lannister genes inevitably rot. They were golden statues filled with worms frolicking inside within their guts, eating away every last ounce of humanity. Beautiful and crumbling.

 

“We lost him in the woods, for a month. When we found him it was too late.” Loras continued, with clear resentment that told Jaime by all means it should have been him looking for his own nephew in the woods, but he wasn’t there. Jaime knew he would carry another soul upon his shoulder, another nail into his coffin. It wasn’t his fault, but it was his burden to bear all the same.

 

The whole ordeal brought a different issue into the mix, and that issue was Cersei. She’d been walking a thin line before he left, and Tommen’s death was bound to be the one final push into the abyss. Loras’ bitterness from before took on a whole new meaning.

 

“What have you done to her?”

 

“Gagged and bound her. It was either that or leave her to the walkers.”

 

Jaime swallowed. _You could feign some sorrow._ The silence that followed was hollow. There were silences loaded with emotions and things unsaid, but that silence around them was so completely hollow it felt like staring into darkness. There was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say. He thought of her and saw her as she was, the bright golden child that had loved him. He felt sorry for that child.

 

“I want to see her.”

 

“Is that wise?” Qyburn chimed in, holding the rifle a little tighter. “After you left… After you left, Jaime, she was in denial. She thought you’d been kidnapped. She insisted we look for you, and for a few weeks we did. But then it was clear you hadn’t, you had packed your bags. She was the only one not seeing it. And when she did, when she finally understood you’d left, she… she wasn’t happy.”

 

“I don’t care, let her yell in my face. I will see my sister. Take me to her.”

 

*

 

It had not been an exaggeration. They had her gagged and bound in the basement of a two-story house not far from there. They had settled in that place two months before and had decided to take advantage of the strong stone walls for a while. The kitchen had been filled with food, enough that they could hope to make it through the canadian winter. Before that they’d moved around, and Cersei had been difficult to deal with: that was when they’d decided to put restraints on her. In fact, that wasn’t all there was to it, as Qyburn specified, because the entire group had wanted to leave her behind.

 

Qyburn himself had been the only one compassionate enough to suggest they carry her along.

 

Loras didn’t utter word the whole stroll back, walking a few steps ahead with the same stubborn attitude of a child in a dentist’s office. Brienne didn’t leave Jaime’s side, uncomfortably tall and uncomfortably ugly but familiar in a way. She still wanted to find Sansa, hoped to keep her promise; perhaps she would leave him to his affairs after this, and resume her mission. Perhaps he would follow her.

 

He was not welcomed back like a hero returning from war, waving flags and cheers and pats on his back. No, he was greeted by alarming screams and running around, shots being fired and terrifying noises.

 

The house was under attack.

 

At the sight of the walkers pushing against the windows Loras started to run, and Qyburn too. Brienne grabbed her own gun and launched head first into the battle while Jaime stilled. It wasn’t fear, but there was a sense of resignation inside him. Would the fight ever come to an end? Would there ever be a light at the end of the tunnel? He saw them fight, all of them, and something inside him snapped.

 

He thought of Cersei.

 

The first zombie went down without much of a fight; he had his back on Jaime and was banging loudly against the wall when the bullet went through the back of his head. The noise attracted more of them in his direction and Jaime took a deep breath: he might die today. Two creatures stumbled toward him, dragging their feet against the cold, naked earth; Jaime looked around hoping for aid but no one came, and he knew he had to either fight or let them overcome him. There was a wooden board on the ground, he picked that up and hit the first one, then the other; they both fell, hit the ground but kept breathing. It took a few more well placed hits to smash their skulls.

 

On the porch Brienne had already gotten rid of four, while Loras fought his way through five more. Qyburn was having trouble with just one. Jaime climbed the few steps into the house and past Margaery Tyrell’s shivering form. The house was a mess, the table had been knocked over and the floor was covered in shattered glass. He barely registered Taena’s lifeless body when he stepped over it, thrusting the barrel of his gun between the yellow teeth of yet another creature and firing right into his brains. Outside Loras was yelling at his sister to take cover, and Margaery Tyrell was saying she wanted to help him.

 

_That used to be us._

 

The basement door was open and Jaime was sure he felt the rush of his blood to his head; he felt warm all of a sudden, but his feet were cold. He heard wet noises, and something less than human. He wanted to turn away and run, rather than face it. The noises of battle outside were diminishing, and Jaime took a step forward, then another, climbed down the creaking stairs but halted midway and knew he should die then. Suddenly everything was clear, and he knew who he was and why he was and that he would not be for much longer.

 

The creature was bent over Cersei’s body, her blood trickling down his chin. Jaime could see her chest rising and falling yet, and her feet kicking feebly. Perhaps it had been the first bite, there was not much blood but that on her neck, blossoming and widening like a huge flower. Jaime lifted his arm and aimed his gun: for the first time he managed hitting the target on first attempt, and the creature flew back into the wall. Cersei’s rattles filled the room and he covered the distance that remained in between them.

 

Wordlessly he crouched down, staring into the face that he recognized at last; she was afraid, terrified, but she recognized him. Her blood stained his jeans, and when he put his hands on her cheek it stained his fingers as well. He didn’t know when he’d begun to cry, perhaps it had been upstairs when he’d seen the open door, or maybe it had been just moments before when he’d known everything was lost. Or maybe just now, looking at her and feeling her slip through his fingers.

 

Like Joffrey. Like Tommen.

 

He’d failed her.

 

Jaime cradled her head in his lap, feeling the warmth spread through the wool of his sleeves too, drenching him in her lifeblood. She did not speak but looked at him with a sort of gratefulness and peace that he did not remember seeing in the last ten years, long before the epidemic had begun its deadly path across the planet. His thumb brushed across her bottom lip and stained it red, vivid and beautiful, like the lipstick she used to stain his collars with.

 

Blood and tears alike on his face, and Jaime knew this would not last, that soon enough it would be time. Her breathing had slowed down, minutes had passed but he refused to leave her side just like he’d refused to let her leave the womb without him. He pressed his forehead against hers and held her tight, unbothered by the blood that just kept flowing and seeping into his clothes, drying on his skin just to be replaced by fresher blood.

 

“Am I dying?”

 

It was but a whisper but he heard it, through the death around them, black and cruel, he heard her. He sniffled hard and squeezed his eyes shut, holding her head a little tighter against him because yes, she was dying, and no, he was not ready. He leaned down, kissed the lips that were red with her blood where he’d smudged it, and shook his head with a small smile.

 

“You’re going to sleep.”

 

“You’ll be there when I wake up?”

 

“Yes. I’m not leaving again.”

 

Her face was white as chalk, and she tried to lift an arm but let it fall again onto the floor, with a thud that could have filled a forest with its finality. With a nod she tried to take a deeper breath but it was just a rasp and she coughed instead. Her lips had turned a darker shade, not the red he liked but cyan, dead.

 

“I want to sleep,” she whispered, low, and Jaime swore he could have wailed then, wailed the same way she’d wailed when they’d cut off his arm, or when the walkers had taken Joffrey.

 

“Go to sleep. I’m gonna be right here.”

 

The gun was warm in his left hand, no longer fuming from the bullets he’d shot some minutes before. He tightened the grip, feeling the metal vibrate in its palm like a soldier ready to salute and march, and he the colonel to give him its command. Cersei looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes, waiting for hundreds of answers she would never get. Jaime kissed her forehead and looked up, at the wall, focusing on her breathing getting more and more feeble until he could barely hear it.

 

“Jaime?”

 

But when he looked down she was gone.

 

Everything above was silent, save for the soft padding above their heads every time someone crossed the room. He heard them whisper, heard Brienne’s voice and Loras’ mumbling. Jaime turned his head to the door, cheeks still damp where the tears had caught him by surprise. With the last inch of strength that remained to him he pressed the barrel to her temple and tightened his crippled arm around her shoulders, hoping he still had a hand to hold her steady.

 

Minutes passed, not many. Then he heard the rattle, so familiar by now.

 

He pulled the trigger.

 

*

 

After Cersei’s death he and Brienne did not dwell with the group. Jaime told her it was because he wanted to help her find the girl, but the truth was he could not bear to be with them a minute longer. They looked at him like one looked at a mourning widow on her husband’s deathbed. They whispered around him like they were terrified of disturbing his grief and that would cause him to lash out on them. That was all good and true, but he hated to face it.

 

Five days after they buried Cersei’s body they left the house and the group, returning to their journey. Brienne was silent for most of their days, adopting the same silent treatment he’d been given by the other back at the house. It suited him fine: he didn’t want to think about Cersei, didn’t want to think about how he had not been able to say goodbye. He’d let her go thinking she’d fall asleep, he had robbed her of her closure. And then he’d shot her, point blank.

 

It didn’t matter that he’d cried.

 

_I killed her. She’s gone. Then why am I alive?_

 

They found Sansa Stark in deep winter, in a small camp set up across the borders of Alaska, surrounded by northern people. Jaime was the one who recognized her first: for some reason everyone called her Alayne. She was not the child he remembered, and winter was etched on her features, her fair skin in stark contrast with the deep auburn of her hair. She was beautiful like a storm, a queen drowning in snow. She did not speak of Petyr Baelish, ever: something about it made her uneasy, Brienne didn’t press and Jaime didn’t care.

 

Brienne and Sansa made quick friends, while Jaime kept to himself. Without a better destination they decided to remain in that camp, the both of them; whereas Brienne seemed to find her youth in Sansa’s company, Jaime felt his own slip away with every passing day. The cold, yes, he told himself it was the cold. But he knew well Cersei was sucking the life out of him wherever she went, desperately dragging him down to whatever Hell she was in.

 

_We came into this world together, we will leave together._

 

He didn’t join in around the fire at night, and sometimes Sansa brought him a bowl of soup to be sure he didn’t starve, or a blanket to keep him from freezing. She was kind, the Stark girl, kind like Cersei used to be when she was young, with him alone. Now and then he’d catch himself staring, wondering if Sansa Stark would ever become as bitter as his sister had become in her later years, wondering if she would ever be happy. Perhaps if he were alive it would have been Robb Stark’s duty to kill his sister, the way it had been Jaime’s to kill his own.

 

There were less walkers around up North and Jaime thought perhaps Cersei was right in wanting to go North, that if she’d reached quit this far she might have lived. Still there were walkers all the same, and when they attacked the camp Jaime was not in his element. The cold was chipping away at him, and something else, a cancer spreading and slowly killing him from the inside: when the walkers came he did not move.

 

The men around him were fighting, killing the walkers one after the other, a few died in the process and turned, and brother killed brother, mother killed son, husband killed wife.

 

The walker arrived unannounced, jumped him from behind and Jaime struggled for a while but when he felt the teeth sink into his shoulder he halted and became a rag doll, closed his eyes and focused on the pain and the blood that spilled from his skin. It didn’t last long and he fell to the ground, in the snowy canvas beneath him, and his blood drew beautiful patterns around him. Slowly the fighting stopped the same way it stopped before Cersei’s death and he thought that it was poetic, that they should die so similarly.

 

If only she was there to kill him now.

 

Sansa Stark was kneeling beside him, so was Brienne, and a few men stood around him in respectful silence. Why would they respect him? What had he done to deserve that? He was as rotten as all the Lannisters that had ever walked this forsaken earth.

 

“What have you done?” Brienne blurted out, her eyes were wet and she was angry, red in the face for more than the cold. “I saw you. You didn’t even fight. What have you done, you stupid man!”

 

How to explain the slow death he’d been suffering since the day of Cersei’s death? The inherent void that her absence had created? How could he hope for them to understand that he’d died that day, by her side, that he’d been a ghost for so long and that this was a relief? How weak and pathetic. He’d been a small man, hardly a man at all. He’d been a coward, and his sister had been a coward too. His father, his son, his brother.

 

“Let her do it,” he said, nodding to Sansa. “Let her fire.”

 

Sansa stood above him but it was Cersei’s face he saw, sweet like it was when she’d wake him up with a kiss and tell him she would die without him. He clenched  fist into the snow and his fingers went numb; when he lifted a hand to caress Sansa’s cheek he thought maybe he could pretend she was Cersei for a moment, and allow himself the luxury of dying with her the way she’d died with him.

 

He felt alone. It was time to go.

 

“I don’t want to,” Sansa muttered, shaking her head. her hands were trembling, looking at Brienne like she wanted the woman to talk sense into him.

 

“Please,” he said. It was getting harder to talk, his body feverish and reaching deadly high temperatures. He felt the infection work his way to his brain. “A dying man’s last wish.”

 

How deceitful. How thoroughly unfair to appeal to that gentle heart that beat inside Sansa’s chest; she could not say no, not when he asked like that even though what he asked of her went against her very nature. He closed his eyes when he saw Sansa’s hands wrap around the cock of Brienne’s gun. In the stillness of those moments Jaime could smell Cersei’s perfume, like she’d abandoned her place in the darkness to accompany him at last.

 

She’d come to take him away.

 

His hand was warm, the hand he did not have.

 

A rattle.

 

Sansa was crying.

  
“Cersei?”


End file.
